Renowned scholar J.-M. R. Tillard defines what the flesh of the Church is for the New Testament and the period of the undivided Church. He enables readers to understand not the structure of God's Church but the living reality of grace for which this structure exists. He explains that the "flesh of the church" is communion of life for humanity reconciled with the Father and with itself "in Christ".

Have the times really changed? Is the Church actually dying? Are we truly in danger of being subsumed beneath a new, ominous culture of evil? Or is the only real change the fact that we have convinced ourselves that times have changed? It is no secret that Christianity has been ceding ground to secular worldliness and exotic spiritualities for years. The front lines of the battle waged against the present darkness have experienced retreat after retreat, each time with people wagging their heads and saying, "If only we can rethink our strategies for mission, we can turn this tide and win the lost for Jesus." But for all our "rethinking," we haven't "rethought" nearly so much as it might seem. Perhaps the real out-of-the-box thinking we need is not out-of-the-box at all, but inside it. In Without Flesh, Jonathan Fisk proposes that we don't need something new. Instead, he writes that we need something old-very, very old. Like...the most important words Jesus ever said. Fisk's solution is more simple than we may think. Maybe the only problem is that we just don't want to believe it's true. "Do this," He said. -- Back Cover.

Christ’s Body, Human Flesh If we’re honest, no one really cares about theology unless it reveals a gut-level view of God’s presence. According to pastor and ministry leader Hugh Halter, only the incarnational power of Jesus satisfies what we truly crave, and once we taste it, we’re never the same. God understands how hard it is to be human, and the incarnation—God with us—enables us to be fully alive. With refreshing, raw candor, Flesh reveals the faith we all long to experience—one based on the power of Christ in the daily grind of work, home, school, and life. For anyone burned out, disenchanted, or seeking a fresh honest-to-God encounter, Flesh will invigorate your faith.

Drawing on modern physics and ancient metaphysics, Stephen H. Webb constructs a philosophy of Christian materialism based on the unity of matter and spirit in the incarnation.

They were amazed at his teaching.''; ''They fell down before him.''; ''He touched her hand.''; ''they left their nets.''; Often when we read the New Testament accounts of Jesus' life, we focus on his teachings and stories. But Don Everts draws our attention to the seemingly insignificant ''stage directions'' of the Gospels that describe the activity surrounding him. ''It's significant,'' Everts writes, ''that in the Gospels we don't just have a bullet list of quotes from Jesus.'' We also have observations of what he did and how people responded to him. By examining these simple phrases and casual comments, Everts assembles a startlingly fresh portrait of who Jesus was and is. While no one has seen the invisible God, when we look at the life of Jesus, we discover what his early followers discovered - that Jesus is the very flesh of God. ''Many people find themselves put off by Christianity but haunted and compelled by the figure of Jesus. In God in the Flesh, Don Everts reminds us why.

“[A] brilliant and provocative work . . . demonstrating the centrality of the flesh to the mysteries and doctrines of the Christian faith.” —Carol Zaleski, Smith College A sustained and systematic theological reflection on the idea that being a Christian is, first and last, a matter of the flesh, Christian Flesh shows us what being a Christian means for fleshly existence. Depicting and analyzing what the Christian tradition has to say about the flesh of Christians in relation to that of Christ, the book shows that some kinds of fleshly activity conform well to being a Christian, while others are in tension with it. But to lead a Christian life is to be unconstrained by ordinary ethical norms. Arguing that no particular case of fleshly activity is forbidden, Paul J. Griffiths illustrates his message through extended case studies of what it is for Christians to eat, to clothe themselves, and to engage in physical intimacy. “In this trenchant and careful theological treatment of our embodiment, Paul Griffiths puts the stress exactly where it should be put––on the possibility of transfigured touch. By focusing on the varieties of touch, he is able to untangle several unfortunate arguments between liberals and conservatives in a most refreshing way.” —John Milbank, University of Nottingham “Very few theologians can boast a comparable combination of profound questioning and precise reasoning. This is a book worthy of the most serious reflection, debate, and admiration.” —David Bentley Hart, Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study “Supremely lucid and beautifully austere.” —Evan Sandsmark, Modern Theology “A model of well-reasoned, stimulating and enduring theology.” —R. David Nelson, International Journal of Systematic Theology

Most theologians believe that in the human life of Jesus of Nazareth, we encounter God. Yet how the divine and human come together in the life of Jesus still remains a question needing exploring. The Council of Chalcedon sought to answer the question by speaking of one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in divinity and also perfect in humanity, the same truly God and truly a human being. But ever since Chalcedon, the theological conversation on Christology has implicitly put Christs divinity and humanity in competition. While ancient (and not-so-ancient) Christologies from above focus on Christs divinity at the expense of his humanity, modern Christologies from below subsume his divinity into his humanity. What is needed, says Ian A. McFarland, is a Chalcedonianism without reserve, which not only affirms the humanity and divinity of Christ but also treats them as equal in theological significance. To do so, he draws on the ancient christological language that points to Christs nature, on the one hand, and his hypostasis, or personhood, on the other. And with this, McFarland begins one of the most creative and groundbreaking theological explorations into the mystery of the incarnation undertaken in recent memory.